The future of the Iran nuclear deal

The attitude of the US towards Iran could change with the administration of the newly elected president Joe Biden (Joe Biden), which Europe also hopes, but the renewal of the Iran nuclear agreement will not be easy, not only because the outgoing president could further complicate relations, but also because of suspicion in the very Tehran, as well as among Washington's closest allies in the Middle East, are written by the world media.

Obstacles to revitalizing the JCPOA

Although at the beginning of the presidential race, Joe Biden said that he would return the US to the nuclear deal with Iran if Tehran does the same, and Iran has said that it will return to the deal when Washington lifts sanctions, reviving the deal could be more difficult than it seems, according to the Washington Post. (The Washington Post).

In theory, returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement signed in 2015 by China, France, Germany, Iran, Great Britain, the United States and Russia - should be straightforward. However, the newspaper assesses, the internal politics in both countries and regional considerations have changed compared to the period when the agreement from which the USA, by the decision of Donald Trump (Trump), withdrew in 2018.

Iran will probably not immediately be at the top of the priorities of the Biden administration, especially because of the numerous challenges it has to face, such as the fight against the pandemic caused by the corona virus, the revival of economies and the renewal of alliances in the world. After January 20, the Washington newspaper adds, it is still possible to see positive signals towards Tehran, that is, Biden could lift Trump's ban on issuing visas to several countries with a majority Muslim population (including Iran), and the administration could issue guidelines that could facilitate Iran's access medical supplies.

Even if Biden decides on an immediate return to the JCPOA, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remains deeply suspicious of Washington, and Trump's withdrawal from the agreement apparently confirmed his views that America is duplicitous, the Washington Post adds. Iran's presidential election in June 2021 could prove an additional hurdle, especially as Khamenei and other hardliners believe that a return to the JCPOA could disrupt their electoral advantage.

Tehran has also called on the United States to financially compensate for the damage caused by tough sanctions imposed by Trump - a demand likely aimed at dissuading Washington from possibly expanding negotiations on Iran's missile program and activities in the region. America's friends in the Middle East, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia, will also strongly oppose the return of the deal because they believe the JCPOA has done too little to limit Iran's nuclear program and their opposition could threaten the deal's viability.

Saudi proposal

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told CNBC that President Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign laid the groundwork for a new deal with Iran, and that Saudi Arabia should be a "partner" to the United States in any future talks. with Iran.

Saudi Arabia is seeking to partner with the US administration on a potential new deal that would not only limit Iran's nuclear activities but also seek to address its "regional malign activity," Al-Saud said in an interview with CNBC, stressing that such a deal could to be called "JCPOA ++".

Al-Saud believes that the agreement could seek to resolve the issue of Iran's ballistic missiles and other weapons programs, and the special issue of Iran's "arming of militant groups, whether it is the Houthis in Yemen or certain groups in Iraq, Syria or Lebanon or beyond." . The Saudi foreign minister emphasized the long-standing partnership his country has with the United States and will cooperate with any administration. Meanwhile, the new administration's relationship with Saudi Arabia is harder to predict, CNBC points out, noting that Biden has criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses, saying he would reassess ties with the kingdom, threatening to halt arms sales to the nation and making them, as he described , "pariah as they are". CNBC reminds that Trump called the agreement between Iran and world powers from 2015 "the worst agreement in history", and after the withdrawal of the USA from the JCPOA, he introduced increasingly harsh sanctions on Iran, calling it a "campaign of maximum pressure". Those sanctions caused the value of the Iranian rial to fall by a fifth of its former value against the dollar, and the country's gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by about six percent for three consecutive years.

Ministerial meeting in Berlin

Seeking to revive the Iran nuclear deal, the foreign ministers of three European countries met this week to discuss cooperation with the incoming administration of Joe Biden, expressing hope that the US will lift sanctions on Tehran, which in turn would end violations of the deal limiting its nuclear activities. , writes The Guardian.

Foreign Ministers Heiko Maas of Germany, Jean-Yves Le Drian of France and Dominic Raab of Great Britain met in Berlin to discuss how "a further approach which includes all the signatories of the JCPOA, and perhaps the new US administration, it might seem." The goal, the unnamed diplomat claims, is to return the JCPOA back to its original goal - the termination of Iran's nuclear program.

Official negotiations between Biden's team and Europe cannot yet begin but, according to the Guardian, Germany, France and Great Britain, known as the E3, have been invited to act as mediators between the US and Iran. Some European officials believe that the E3 could more easily broker a deal that would quickly end Iran's violations of the agreement and the US president would lift economic sanctions by executive order. The agreement, the paper added, could be temporarily reached with or without the US formally returning to the JCPOA.

However, there may be obstacles to such a quick formal return to the deal if Iran were to seek assurances, the Guardian points out, adding that last week Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif suggested Iran may need assurances before allowing the US to join. to the old JCPOA.

German officials also added that Europe will consider its response if Donald Trump launches a surprise attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in the final days of his administration. Wendy Sherman, America's lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran deal, said last week that the nuclear deal "hangs by a thread" in the final months of the Trump administration and that Biden's team would have to start consultations with European partners very soon.

Maximum pressure as an escalation strategy

In the last three years, the Trump administration has been implementing a strategy of maximum pressure on Iran by introducing increasingly harsh sanctions that had a serious economic impact on Iran, but failed to force Tehran to a new round of negotiations as Washington requested, he wrote in his review for The Independent ), associate of the Defense Priorities think-tank from Washington, Daniel DePetris.

The sanctions, Depetris wrote in the Voices column, have complicated Iran's ability to import basic necessities such as food and medicine, while the country's financial resources abroad have been frozen. As a result of the sanctions, Iran's crude oil exports fell by at least 40 percent compared to May 2018.

American policymakers assumed that financial woes would eventually force Iran's leadership to return to the table for a new round of negotiations. However, Depetris points out for the London newspaper, no talks took place, but the Iranians responded to maximum pressure with maximum resistance, and - according to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency - the stockpiles of enriched uranium in Tehran are over ten times larger than they were before the Washington sanctions.

Maximum pressure is basically a strategy of escalation, Depetris points out, pointing out that the only thing American policy gave birth to was the self-destructive cycle of "good for good" between Washington and Tehran, which almost resulted in a conflict at the beginning of the year. Ultimately, whether Washington re-enters the nuclear deal is less important to American security than whether the US and Iran can work together to find a path toward de-escalation overall.

Biden should not waste time reversing his predecessor's policies, but instead could use intermediaries to send a clear message to Tehran that the U.S. is prepared to accept a more modest arrangement -- partial sanctions relief for partial nuclear curbs -- with the goal of both nations avoiding the hostilities that erupted in January. 2020. Returning relations to a stable path would be a small but significant step on the way to a healthier foreign policy, wrote Danijel Depetris in the 'Voices' section of the London Independent newspaper.